BARRIE CASSIDY, PRESENTER: Joining us now in the studio is the Greens leader, Senator Christine Milne, and as she does join us, here's the new Treasurer, Chris Bowen, getting divorce proceedings under way.

CHRIS BOWEN, TREASURER: This is not a criticism of the decision to go into alliance with the Greens but it is a reflection of my views having been considered, that the Labor Party, when it puts a view to the Australian people, and campaigns in an election campaign for office, that we should govern alone and that we should not enter into formal deals with other political parties.

I think this term of office has been one where we have achieved a lot and we've achieved a lot by working with other political parties and Independents, of course we have that is a statement of fact.

I am saying that the Labor Party, in my view - my contribution to the debate is that the Labor Party stands best by its policies and we have a lot to offer with our policies and we shouldn't need the policies of the Greens.

We believe in things that the Greens party fundamentally disagrees with and that we have a separate existence and that in future we should govern alone.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Senator Milne, welcome.

CHRISTINE MILNE, GREENS LEADER: Thank you.

BARRIE CASSIDY: I think what he is saying there is never again, are you okay with that?

CHRISTINE MILNE: It is extraordinary that Chris Bowen is saying that in 2010, Tony Abbott should have become the Prime Minister and he's effectively dis-owning all of the good things that have been negotiated in this period of Government.

We have got not only carbon pricing and $10 billion going into renewables but we have 3.5 million children who will be able to access Medicare funded Denticare and we've got the parliamentary budget office, we have Indigenous recognition on the way in the Constitution.

And he is saying, no, the level of arrogance in the old parties is coming straight through with his view that you should have absolute power and the community is saying no actually we want people to work together and a strong alternative voice is what is necessary and that is why the Greens are there and so important.

BARRIE CASSIDY: What you are saying is you did more than influence policy, you dictated it at times?

CHRISTINE MILNE: I wouldn't say it was a dictation of policy. We worked to improve a lot of legislation and there are many many stakeholders around the country who appreciate the work that we did to improve things on the R and D package for example, there have been big changes because the Greens were there. There have been many other things like Denticare for example was part of our agreement and carbon pricing was part of our agreement, no doubt about that.

BARRIE CASSIDY: On that, would Julia Gillard have broken her promise that there would be no carbon tax had it not been for an alliance with the Greens?

CHRISTINE MILNE: I don't think Labor would have done anything on carbon pricing in this period of Government if it wasn't for the agreement with the Greens. That was central to it. Neither of the old parties wanted to do anything...

BARRIE CASSIDY: It was central to the damage done to Julia Gillard, so do you take responsibility for that?

CHRISTINE MILNE: The Labor Party can take responsibility for the mistakes that the Prime Minister made in terms of saying that it was a carbon tax, when in fact what we legislated was an emissions trading scheme with a fixed price period. That is where the problem came because of what she promised or didn't promise. It was about trust and it wouldn't have mattered whether it was carbon pricing or another policy. The issue here is because the Greens were there, we responded to global warming and the international energy agency has congratulated Australia for the template legislation that we now have and we should all be proud of it and history is going to judge it very kindly.

BARRIE CASSIDY: What do you make of the move to bring forward the floating price by a year?

CHRISTINE MILNE: It is cowardly. If you believed that climate change was the greatest moral challenge of our time and it is, we are living in a climate emergency. You would not now be moving to have the big polluters pay less. That is what Kevin Rudd is doing. It is all about politics, not about policy and he should really have been trying to strengthen and increase the level of ambition instead of saying we're going to slow down the transition in the Australian economy and what about all of those companies and businesses that have invested in the clean economy? He is sending a very strong signal that his preference is to not only make it cheaper for the big polluters but he will fast-track coal seam gas and he's going to continue to expand coal exports. Kevin Rudd is a fake on the climate.

BARRIE CASSIDY: You would have expected this though, you saw it coming?

CHRISTINE MILNE: I have seen it coming and that is why it is really important the Greens are there after the election, whichever of the major parties forms Government, we need to be there with a strong voice in the House of Reps and the Senate, to make sure that the advocacy for the climate stays. In all this discussion about changing to a flexible price, no-one is talking about the impacts on the climate and what it means for the EU and the fact is if the EU price was now $50 would we be rushing for flexible pricing.

BARRIE CASSIDY: It's just one year though, it is bringing it forward one year. What difference does one year really make?

CHRISTINE MILNE: The issue is what does it do to the climate? We have a Climate Change Authority that sets the level of ambition of reducing emissions. Is Kevin Rudd now saying he is going to abandon the Climate Change Authority and that recommendation and sneak back to his five per cent emissions reduction? That is a key thing. Secondly, the EU linking has to be renegotiated. Can it be done in the time and the other issue is what does it mean for the budget with $4-5 billion to be found, what else is he going to cut. They are already cutting universities; they're already keeping people in poverty with Newstart.

BARRIE CASSIDY: He said they will, he said it will be revenue neutral.

CHRISTINE MILNE: Well then what is he going to cut? Out of the carbon price money now, we have got the low carbon communities program and biodiversity fund and the clean technology fund. We have just had in Tony Windsor's electorate $23 million spent on a food processing facility on energy efficiency. I have been to other factories where this money is being used to transform the economy. Are all those things going to go?

BARRIE CASSIDY: Let's go to your policies. You're launching them today for the election. We will start with Newstart, you're talking about an increase of $50 a week at a cost of $9 billion?

CHRISTINE MILNE: Yes, it is absolutely right we do that. There has been a massive community campaign recognising that in a rich country like ours, we ought not to be keeping people in poverty and there is no way people can try to even get back into the workforce when they are being forced to live on such a low amount of money. Add to that your single parents, who have been taken off their levels of support and that is why we have to do what not only the charities and the churches and the Greens are saying, but even the business community. Everybody recognises this has to be done. This is what is fair and just and decent. If you care about the way our society is you need to increase that money into Newstart.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Getting to where the money is coming from in a moment. R and D, you talk about that being three per cent of GDP. Another $3 billion in education funding and restoring the higher education cuts. Do you think the Government will eventually match that promise to restore the higher education cuts?

CHRISTINE MILNE: They need to. They are really dumb cuts. If you're going to transition from an economy which is based on digging up, cutting down and shipping away to a smart diversified economy, where you have critical thinking innovation, you have the roll-out of research and development and new industries and new jobs, then you back your universities. You have to back education from early childhood right through schools and into universities and the $2.3 billion out of university are dumb cuts and we want them changed. We want that reversed.

Equally we want to bring forward additional money into the schools funding program and put another $2 billion into that. What Labor has done is back ended it so there are many children at school now who will be left school by the time the real funding flows through. We want to put more money into that.

I think if you're talking about the future of the country, you have to recognise the driver of the future of a low carbon economy, a smart economy is through education. That is where we want to really focus.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Something like $42 billion in extra expenditure, now you're relying on the mining companies to pay half of that. You really do regard the mining companies as a cash cow at a time when commodity prices are down and so are profits.

CHRISTINE MILNE: The issue with the mining tax and I think the commodity price has been a distraction. It has been a fundamentally fatally flawed design of the mining tax and it is ridiculous that it only raised $200 million last year. The flaws in it go to how you rebate the royalties. The level of depreciation that the mining companies have been allowed to claim. The level of the tax, why is it only 22 per cent when it should be 40 per cent if that is what it is for oil and gas?

So the parliamentary budget office has done these costings post the budget this year. It is not as if it hasn't taken into account the fall in commodity prices, it has. It is saying that these huge companies, 80 per cent of the shareholders are from overseas, are making mega profits in spite of the falloff of the commodity prices and we should get a fair return for our resources so that we can invest in education and we can get people out of poverty. We need to transform this economy and they can afford to pay.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Then you have got the commodity prices are falling and profits are down. You run the risk of scaring them away.

CHRISTINE MILNE: That is not the case. That is what the mining companies say all the time but the reality is that the mining companies recognise they are very well off in Australia because they have a stable, political regime, it is secure, it is safe here. If you look at what is happening to them around the world, sovereign risk is far greater elsewhere and it is appalling to see the Australian mining companies saying that they want to be able to continue to pay bribes in Africa, for example. They know they are on a good thing in Australia.

BARRIE CASSIDY: You talk about the mining companies and you're relying on the banks as well with a levy on bank profits to raise $8 billion over three years. You must accept that a strong banking sector underpins the economy?

CHRISTINE MILNE: Absolutely. But the point is they are making mega profits. Last year the four big banks made profits that would extend to $1,000 for every Australian. That is a huge profit. Part of the reason for the four big banks being able to make that profit is that the community underpins them. The four big banks get an advantage over all the small banks and credit unions because of that and as a result of our backing those banks they can borrow money on the wholesale banking markets so they can get that cheaper and that is why they make mega profits.

We are saying do what the International Monetary Fund has said and that is let's put a levy on the four big banks and you will then be able to return that money to the community and it won't be passed on because it means they will then be more competitive with the smaller banks.

BARRIE CASSIDY: You ever seen from overseas experiences that if bank profits are suddenly impacted, the results can be catastrophic.

CHRISTINE MILNE: Suddenly impacted, a small levy as we're proposing, you know as 0.2 per cent levy on assets over $100 billion won't collapse the banking system. What it is going to do is make the banking system more competitive and allow us to do what we need to do in Australia and that is get to looking after our environment, looking after people and making sure we make the transition to the clean economy.

BARRIE CASSIDY: The other big revenue raising point is to put - to raise the tax on millionaires to 50 per cent. At the same time nowhere can I see where you look at programs and say well we can make cuts, there are savings to be made. Is there no waste no inefficiency, nothing that you can cut in terms of services?

CHRISTINE MILNE: One of the things we are saying that we would cut is fossil fuel subsidies and we would cut the investment in carbon capture and storage. We are clearly saying we can raise billions in cutting fossil fuel subsidies. Australia actually signed up to doing that with the G20 and we're taking over the presidency of the G20 and there is absolutely no reason why we wouldn't make cuts to that because why would you subsidise the fossil fuel companies if you were interested in actually reducing green house gas emissions?

That will be a big campaign in the next 12 months with us hosting the G20 in Brisbane next year and that is where Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott are on a big collision course with the Greens and the community because we want to save the Great Barrier Reef, we don't want to see this massive expansion in the Bowen basin and those massive ports up the Great Barrier Reef. I think the community is going to say no, the old parties are going in the wrong direction; we do need to look after the environment.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Your vote at the 2010 election was 12 per cent. It peaked at 14 per cent at one stage since then. It is now back to nine per cent. Is the community missing Bob Brown?

CHRISTINE MILNE: I think there has been a lot of fluctuation in the polls but what the community needs is people who stand up for what they believe in and can be trusted. What Kevin Rudd has done in the last 48 hours is tell everyone who cares about global warming that he can't be trusted. That is why the Greens in our platform we're launching today is we are standing up for what matters and that is what people value about the Greens. Unlike the old parties, who rely very much on a popularity contest, in terms of the Greens, people know they are voting for a political policy platform with people who are sincere and passionate about that platform and will support it and vote for it, not flip flop and on one occasion say they think education is important, then slash it, on another occasion say offshore processing is terrible and then do it. The Greens are consistent. We have a strong philosophical view.

BARRIE CASSIDY: It does appear, if the polls are right, that a hung parliament is again in prospect in the House of Representatives and it may be in the Senate Nick Xenophon and the DLP's John Madigan might hold the balance of power.

CHRISTINE MILNE: That is the challenge for the Greens this election. It would be disastrous if we end up with one of the major parties controlling both houses of parliament and the Coalition effectively would be the only ones able to do that. In terms of a minority Government scenario it is critical that we have Adam Bandt there in the lower house and the Greens holding the balance of power in the Senate. If you have John Madigan for example, you will have some whacky extremist policies, particularly attacking women's reproductive health for example.